Saturday, March 10, 2012

Dumb As A Rock

As it turned out, I hunted zero rabbits the other day. My buddy Ed had a car problem, so I spent my morning creeping through his shop armed with a flashlight and stalking dropped bolts, screws, and sockets, handing over screw drivers and whatever else he dropped next. And cracking jokes.

We found out the hard way that if you depress the clutch on this vehicle, the battery and starter work just fine and may not need fixing. Go ahead. Laugh.

Want to know what's funnier than that? This.
It's a pretty unusual sight to see crowds gather on the streets here after 1 a.m. — almost as unusual as a 340-ton boulder rolling through town.

The rock – dubbed “Levitated Mass” and one of the most photographed celebrities in Southern California – gathered a following of about 60 people early Tuesday as it passed through La Palma on a circuitous path that will end at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There, the rock will become part of a permanent exhibit.


Yeah. It's a fucking rock.
Being moved at great expense to an art museum. For display.
Can't make this shit up.
Somewhere, I read about it costing $20 million to move this thing 100 miles. All donated money, or something like that.
That's a lot of money that can be better spent providing contraceptives to 20,000 immature Ivy League snowflakes coeds for a year. What a waste.

So you got this, right?
A rock.
They are placing a rock on the lawn of an art museum and calling it 'Art'.

To me, "Art" would be, oh, maybe something that involved creative talent and imagination... along the line of replicating the image/shape of a rock using paper mache, or drawing a picture, or even taking a pretty picture of a rock using a camera.

What they are doing here is called "landscaping".
For some reason, it's a newsworthy event around these parts when it's done by people with more dollars than sense.

11 comments:

my name is Amanda said...

Using contraceptives = immature

Lolz!

John said...

I read about this great project yesterday. Here in the East we have an alternative strategy, we bring the people to the rocks (e.g. http://seerockcity.com/ ) but CA has always been a progressive state with more big ideas. Hopefully the next time the state decides to shimmy and shake no visitors to the exhibit will be crushed.

Bike Bubba said...

OK, they spent donated money to move the rock. Now, 340 tons on highways built to carry trucks at a maximum of 40 tons. Did they pay for the road damage?

Given that road damage goes as the square to fourth power of the weight on the wheels, the taxpayer is likely taking it in the shorts for this one. It's the equivalent to up to about 1000 semis making that trip. Or worse.

Gino said...

bubba: one of the stories i read spoke a specally designed trailer that spread the weight over 40 or more axels, and they chose the roads carefully to account for the load.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Taking the pill = responsible

lolz.

Anonymous said...

Ms. Fluke, or any other number of leftist women out there, could use it as a tongue stud. That would be artistic.

KD

my name is Amanda said...

WBP-

Yes, protecting yourself not getting pregnant by taking the pill IS responsible. Seriously, what is WRONG with you? Do you get that we're treading into "stupid or lying" territory, here? I mean, you've shown yourself to be intolerant of OH ANYTHING someone says if they happen to be a Democrat Woman, but I've never considered you to be stupid. So how about you stop with the disingenuous crap?

I don't want to hear another anti-contraception argument from a man until he can prove that the number of children he's produced is equal to the number of times he's had sex with women. Seriously. Because I have a notion that men Rather Like! not becoming a father EVERY TIME they have sex.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

First, I'm not anti-contraception.

Second, the mere act of taking contraception is a far cry from being responsible. For example, putting on one's seat belt and driving 100 mph on icy roads is not responsible.

Using contraception can be a part of responsible decision-making. But I'm not fond of parroting the message that merely protecting oneself from unintended pregnancy and disease (if one also uses condoms) qualifies as responsible. That is an exceedingly low bar.

And I'd be willing to be that we actually do have some common ground there.

[Yo]u've shown yourself to be intolerant of OH ANYTHING someone says if they happen to be a Democrat Woman

"Woman" is a non sequitur. Why do you throw that in? Do you think that I have such distaste for your ideas because you are a woman? Mightn't it be because I think the ideas themselves are destructive and wrong-headed?

And that's the recurring problem with your ideas as I've seen them in action in comment sections. In this case, you casually, perhaps without even thinking, accuse me of sexism. Other times it's been racism. Someone who merely disagrees with you runs the risk of being labelled any number of things, not because of evidence but by because he/she disagrees with you and people with the wrong ideas must be racists and sexists and who know what else.

I think that's repugnant.

Gino said...

i used the word immature for a reason. if one wants to enjoy the activity of a responsible adult, they should expect to take responsibility for its maintanance.

this applies to not expecting others to pay for your condoms, beer, cigarettes, or ammo.

that was my point.

my name is Amanda said...

Gino - Your clarification is a relief. Though the thing that I thought you were saying has been supported by other people in the country - which is why I came that conclusion here.

WBP - It's about 99% more responsible than using nothing. To me, it's a far "higher bar" than putting on a seatbelt and driving 100 mph. But whatever.

"Woman" is a non sequitur. Why do you throw that in? Do you think that I have such distaste for your ideas because you are a woman? Mightn't it be because I think the ideas themselves are destructive and wrong-headed?

It's not a non sequitur to me, since I am one. Perhaps it was inappropriate to mention it on Gino's blog, however, because it has been in other places where I have felt piled on by a list of men disagreeing with me. I have come back here to comment because I am feeling a little guilty about responding in such a caustic manner. It is a complaint of mine, but it wasn't necessarily warranted in this space or at this moment, and I'm sorry about that.

Maybe it's not the fault of the men that they are men and they are disagreeing where it could be possible for a woman to disagree, or to agree, OR for a man to agree, if it hadn't taken place on a politically natured blog inhabited mostly by male Republicans. But there's a difference between calling someone "sexist" and asking them to consider whether certain views are sexist. I ask for a little understanding as to why I could have possibly felt that I wasn't being taken seriously, and how difficult it has been for me to believe that a group of men with opposing political views, who are for the most part older than me, weren't being affected in the least by sexism, even if it wasn't intentional. Yet still I couldn't name anybody and argue "That is a Sexist!" Nor would I care to, in a space that I like to visit. If I were so sure of something like that, I wouldn't bother to participate.

Nor have I ever called you "a Racist." But I have called ideas and certain legislation racist. I hope you agree that there is a difference. Fairly certain that I also mentioned that distinction a few exasperating times in the same aforementioned space, and nobody EVER gave me the time of day and admitted that there was a difference. It seemed like people preferred instead to use my distinction as more ammunition for derailing the topic by complaining that they were being called racists.

If I were behave in the like, then I would complain that you called me "repugnant" rather than the practice of name-calling in a disagreement. When you clearly haven't. Here perhaps we have some common ground as well, as I also feel that my ideas have been shut down by use of ("Democrat," "Liberal") labels.

And that's just about all I can possibly say on this subject, believe it or not.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

Amanda,

You certainly have never said, "You are a racist" or "You are a sexist." However, such accusations have often been implicit in your comments.

You might say, "But that wasn't my intention at all!"

And you know what? I would absolutely believe you. I don't think you have any intention of impugning people like that.

But I think your ideology and its forms of argumentation lead you into it. As an example, you speak of being a female who is outnumbered by older men, how this can make you feel, and how maybe such men are being sexist unintentionally. Like it or not, you are taking your feelings and processing them by ascribing possible sexist thoughts or attitudes to us.

Now it might actually be true that some of us or all of us are sexists or have sexist attitudes. But that reality exists entirely apart from your experience of feeling outnumbered.

When judgment is seated in the subjective feelings of one person, injustice is certain. And that is why I have reacted strongly.

The argument might be made that I am simply doing the same thing in reverse, that my feelings of injustice lead me to make a subjective judgment about the liberal ideology's propensity for subjective judgment. If that is the case, then irony is alive and well.

And this is why I love commenting and the heated back and forth of argument. It can be maddening, but it can also confront one with truths, albeit uncomfortable ones. And so I confess to you that I've been cranky, impolite, and dismissive. I have not been this way because you are a woman, nor because you are a liberal, but because I recognize myself in you. In criticizing you I have been busy criticizing myself. I'm sorry for being a jerk.